This story was created as part of Ideastream Public Media's “Sound of Us” audio storytelling workshop, in collaboration with the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center. We are featuring stories about identity. Each of our community storytellers explores aspects of their identity they find important. Tell your own story!
My name is Tristan Wheeler, though sometimes people call me “INFINITEQUE.” That’s my gamer name. I’m 41 years old, and I’ve been playing video games my entire life.
There are all kinds of stigmas about adult gamers, but games can be meaningful, even into adulthood. Terrence Myhand, who’s 42 now, said he saw games everywhere as a kid.
“I had these marbles,” Myhand said. “I would take an ice tray and I would pretend the ice tray was a bus, and I would scoot around on the floor, crawling around, picking up the marbles that I laid down around the house because those were my passengers. We had fun with what we had.”
Now, there are entire communities of gamers, like at GamerHaven on East 185th Street in Cleveland’s North Collinwood neighborhood. At GamerHaven, you can browse shelves of gamer magazines from the 90s, grab a bowl of ramen from NoodlPOP, and play games like Marvel vs. Capcom II.
John Tate is a 33-year-old professional gamer who also has a day job in IT. He’s been playing competitive fighting games since he was 16. Now, he helps run tournaments at GamerHaven. John said he got into gaming through his older brother, Jermaine.
“My brother bought me my first console,” Tate said. “I couldn't afford the consoles at the time. They were like $200-300, and again, that's a lot of money back in the 90s. He bought me Zelda's 'Majora's Mask.'”
"The Legend of Zelda" is a classic Japanese adventure game filled with puzzles and challenges, and it changed everything for Tate. He said the game taught him how to think.
“[Zelda] kind of introduced me to learning different strategies like how to think like chess, how to get around the obstacle and not just go straight through," Tate said.
While Tate was playing 'Zelda,' Myhand was watching his older brother play beat-’em-up arcade games at the local convenience store.
"I used to watch him over there off of 81st and Superior, what used to be Lawson's,” Myhand said. “I would watch him play 'Double Dragon' on the arcade machine in there, and he would do really good.”
But it’s when he got the controller in his own hands, playing 'Final Fight,' that Myhand and his brother really got hooked.
“It was only a one-player game, but when he would die and lose, he would pass it to me,” Myhand said. “As you get progressively towards the end of the stage, the music like changes and ramps up. You're punching all these guys. They got the big, fat guys running out with the head butts, guys come over kicking the barrels over the guys with the fire. I was like, I'm gonna keep playing this game over and over again until I beat it.”
That feeling that Myhand is describing is one that I understand deeply. I love being immersed in the different worlds that video games create through the stories, characters, music and artwork.
“You can feel the love and care put into it when you play a really good game and it just hits,” Myhand said.
Tate feels the same way about video game music. He listens to video game soundtracks even when he’s not playing games.
“When you're walking to school, you put on your CD player, [and] it feels like you're playing the game on the go,” Tate said.
He started singing me his favorite video game tune while we’re in GamerHaven. It’s from "StarFox" on the Super Nintendo, which came out in 1993.
I immediately recognized it. This shared moment? That’s what gaming culture is all about.
“We can talk to each other about a certain part in the game and you'd be like, ‘Oh, yeah, uh-huh,'” Myhand said. “It’s a shared passion. It's wonderful because it lets you be you.”
People think gaming means being alone in your room, isolating yourself. But the reality is, I’ve met my best friends in life playing and talking about video games.
Gaming helps us to feel understood, to learn new things, and to meet new people all while experiencing something great together.
